Nine Feet Underground

The radio alarm clock wakes me with the sound of 'French Disko' (A.K.A 'French Disco' in some versions), the first tune on Radcliffe & Maconie today, and a rousing way to start the day.  Great tune and love the lyrics, especially: " It's said human existence is pointless As acts of rebellious solidarity Can bring sense in this world La résistance" ...and then things rapidly went downhill 1. Carers inform me E doesn't look well and is not very responsive. 2. She takes a COVID test and it's negative. 3. Nevertheless, the carers ask me to contact the out-of-hours doctor as they are concerned. 4. I speak to a doctor who arranges  for a doctor to come and check her over. 5. Doctor arrives.  Does tests. Thinks she has an infection coming on.  Starts E on antibiotics. 6. A little later I hear E coughing. It sounds bad and rapidly this changes into gurgling as if she's underwater. I get son #2 to look over as he doesn't have COVID. She's no...

Work again but emboldened by a good night out last night.  Walked early, as usual, though maybe a bit earlier due to the cleaner's usual crack of dawn appearance. Work dominates the day, until finally the hour approaches for the Idler drinks. Tonight's guest is Viv Groskop who is a writer and comedian (amongst other things) who will be talking about life lessons that can be learned from French literature and all things French. Well that was fun! Even more books I need to read, but I particularly pick up on 'Bonjour Tristesse' by Francoise Sagan as one I need to add to my list.  I stuck around for the post-talk chat, but son #2 had made dinner so I had to depart before I'd got fully involved. Son #3 is out tonight, so he ate early, son #1 is still staying with his gf and son #2 is on a video call with his gf, which meant I watched TV on my own. On the plus side it meant I could choose what I watched, and I chose a music documentary about Rockfield Studios near Monmou...

Annual leave today which brings a change of emphasis. I still walked for 30 minutes early on, but after that the day is my own. Nothing planned specifically though I do have things to do. First on my list is to return the pair of trousers I ordered for an upcoming wedding.  They fit more or less, but I think their definition of slim fit would more accurately be described as skeletal fit (bearing in mind there is a fit described as 'skinny' which I assume to be even more close fitting than slim).  It never ceases to amaze me how much the clothing industry manages to interpret the same words to mean something different. I guess, of course, it could be that I am becoming overweight and 'slim' is me clinging on to my youth. Hmmm. Read more of book club novel and continued with my re-reading of 'Ulysses', reinvigorated by tomorrow being Bloomsday, though I will attempt to read sections at the times they occur, as much as work (for I am back at work tomorrow) will all...

Tuesday and work beckons.  Highlight of my day, so far (who are you kidding!), has been the early morning chat with the first carer of the day.  She and I share a sense of humour and she's quite happy to take the piss out of me, which is always a good way to bring me down to earth, whilst also understanding the complexity of the situation. In a moment of calm thought, as opposed to the usual flailing about trying to do things to effect change, one of the reasons I am at a low ebb became apparent.  For the whole period of lockdown, which for me has effectively been the past 12 months (owing to shielding my wife), it has been impossible to change my life because meeting people hasn't been possible. The fact that change hasn't been possible has to some extent suppressed the frustration at not being able to change things, but as the prospect of life returning starts to become a possibility, then the sense of having wasted 12 months of my life is heightened.  Not only a l...

Despite being very busy at work this week, it seems to be going very slowly, though perhaps that's also because I am finding it so tedious being reliant on everyone else for so much and not being able to much exercise for fear of exploding abdominally. (Aside: Which reminds me,  the doctor said my belly button arrangement was also a hernia, so my longstanding fear that belly buttons can un-knot themselves and leak out your innards is in fact reality - and I'd let people convince me this was ridiculous! Who's having the last laugh now? Not me, I guess) My working morning is back to back calls starting at 8:30, which is always a challenge to getting things done, further exacerbated by the ops team nagging me to book all my leave for 2021 which is allied to a whole bunch of rules about how much leave has to be taken by certain dates. Work Lunch today was Thai pork sausages, courtesy of our twin Thai carers, and a very good lunch it was.  Two types of sausage: normally spiced a...

Gotta put 2019 behind me!  This will be the final post on last year's music - despite the fact that I keep discovering new things I'd missed (WaqWaq Kingdom, anyone?) and also questioning my final top 10, which admittedly I was doing at the time I compiled the list. Inevitably this will omit many things of note: no doubt I could keep writing until words were written about every album I liked in 2019, but that ain't happening. 2020 is here, and we're all off to hell in a handcart. Looking back is ultimately futile - there is only now and now plus one. It's time to move on, new music is already appearing in 2020 - thank you, Wire, for getting the year off to a great start - gigs are getting booked, starting with Julian Cope, who has a new album, 'Self Civil War', due out in February, and, from what I've heard so far, it's his best in while.  With that in mind, f or the final time then, let's wind the clock back to 2019 and just see what el...

" Rational and poetical, summing up contradictions "

[Third attempt at writing this] With any luck I am experiencing post-holiday blues today: I have just returned from five days staying with friends in the South of France, which culminated in me flying in a light aircraft from Cannes and taking the controls to execute several manoeuvres - the dream of a lifetime (Thank you so much Kathy and Lloyd!) So I guess it's no surprise today is a bit of an anti-climax, though that has been made worse by another event (or rather non-event), which it would be unfair to share here. Freedom from the constant demands of being a carer for the past five days has highlighted to me how great the pressure normally is. Being back I feel as if I have picked up a hundred-weight sack of potatoes that I cannot put down. This has been life for the past five or more years, so I guess it will feel like normality before the day is out. I've been trying to make the most of this unexpectedly free day, but find myself with little interest in anything...

Stereolab have been one of my favourite bands ever since I first heard them on John Peel's radio programme in the early 1990s, so despite a mid-week London gig, there was no doubt in my mind I had to be there for the latest tour.   Their sound evolved hugely over the years, if you compare, say their debut album 'Peng' to the late-period 'Chemical Chords', for example, you might imagine - vocals aside - this was a different band. To some extent they were a different band, having evolved from a four-piece to a six-piece band by time I last saw them live, which was on the 'Emperor Tomato Ketchup' tour, and even then their sound was still evolving. (To be fair, their sound evolved continuously, perhaps the true definition of progressive rock, even if many people wouldn't include them in that category.) Back to now, what's changed? Well, here I was back at the Shepherd's Bush Empire waiting to see Stereolab, but, sadly,  without my wife, wh...